


Follow You Into the Dark

by persephone (pda)



Series: Never Been Kissed [3]
Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Incest, Lactation Kink, Plot What Plot, Post-Game(s), Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-06
Updated: 2011-12-06
Packaged: 2017-10-26 23:54:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pda/pseuds/persephone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years have passed since the destruction of the Chantry and the confrontation at the Gallows. Sebastian Vael is dead; Marian Hawke, once Viscount of Kirkwall, has disappeared; and the templars have seceded from the Chantry.</p><p>Feeling no longer bound by the vows he took to the Order, Ser Carver Hawke leaves Kirkwall in search of his missing sister--and sometimes lover. Together, they must answer the question: to what end?</p><p>(Not really a standalone; familiarity with the two previous stories in this series is recommended.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow You Into the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I'd had no intention of continuing writing these characters chronologically past the end of "Never Been Kissed", but I had a holiday request from a friend of mine for general 'Hawkecest', with or without porn, and this is what happened.
> 
> Enjoy!

When the templars rebelled, so did Carver. Giving thanks that he had not yet been initiated as a full member of the Order, and therefore dependent on lyrium, he packed a satchel and, in plain clothes, snuck out of the Gallows for the last time, a note clutched in his hand.

 _It’s no longer safe for me here, no matter what anyone says,_ it read. _Flemeth predicted change coming—I see a madness that no one will be able to protect me from. There is only one place I can think of where I may be safe, where I can vanish and the so called Champion of Kirkwall can be lost. Don’t worry about me. Take care of yourself._

He’d crushed the letter in his hand when he’d first read it, overcome with rage that she would simply _leave_ , disappear, anger fueled by the complicated, tangled relationship he had with his sister. But when temper passed and he’d smoothed it out to read through again, he knew where she’d gone.

More than a year later, her prophecy come to pass, he set out to find her.

Lothering had changed in the intervening decade since he’d last set foot in it, almost as much as he had, almost as unrecognizable. The streets were laid out strangely, the buildings in different places. It was smaller, too, the farmlands surrounding it bare and brown despite nearing Funalis. He wondered if it hadn’t been an important way point on the southern Imperial road if Ferelden would have let this backwater of a town stay withered up and blown off the map after the Blight. As it was, the country too poisoned by taint, it survived only by the grace of the Maker and the passing merchants.

There was one constant. The Chantry house loomed on the slight rise he remembered, although the architecture was Fereldan now, not Orlesian, undoubtedly rebuilt on the foundations of the old.

There were no templars guarding the door.

He went instead to the largest building, dwarfing even the Chantry for size, clearly the sole inn. At this time of day, just after noon, the public room was empty—merchant caravans having left for their travels in the morning, the ones which would stay this evening not yet arrived—outside of a man standing behind a counter and a young boy wiping down tables. Both looked up at Carver’s entrance, and he saw the wariness enter their eyes at what they saw. Though he’d shed the telltale platemail long ago in Kirkwall, there was no disguising the threat from the two handed sword sheathed across his back or the carriage of a man who’d spent more than half his life training with it. He spread his hands out to signal his peaceful intent, saying, “I’d just like to buy a meal and some ale. And ask some questions.”

“Sit down, ser,” the innkeeper said gruffly, motioning Carver to a stool at the bar. “We don’t normally serve dinner, but we have some leftover stew the boy and I can share if you’ve the coin.” Carver dug out a handful of coppers, _No reason to flash the silver and make myself a target_ , laying them on the unpolished counter in silent answer to the challenge. A nod to the boy sent him scurrying off to fetch a bowl of something that Carver decided best not to ask questions about—at least it was warm, with a few root vegetables swimming around the thin broth. The tapkeeper added a pint of ale which was, at least, as good as Carver remembered Fereldan ale to be, and resumed polishing his glassware. “So what brings you to Lothering?”

“I’m looking for someone. A woman.”

The tapkeeper chuckled. “Aren’t we all, lad?”

The man’s suggestive tone caused a blush to creep up Carver’s neck. He was right, but there was still enough shame in him to feel pricked by it. “She would have arrived in the last year or two. Tall.” He raised a hand to approximate where she stood compared to himself. “Black hair, blue eyes.”

“The Witch of the Wilds,” the tapkeeper said with a knowing nod.

Carver blinked, feeling goosebumps pebble his skin despite the summer warmth. He remembered Flemeth, both here, outside of Lothering, and on Sundermount. “She would have been younger than that.”

“Young, that’s her,” the tapkeeper said confidently. “No one knows where she came from, just suddenly was living in a hut, offering her herb lore. Not many healers want to come this way, what with the Blight taint still poisoning the land.” Suspicion stole into his expression, and he gave Carver a hard look. “You’re not meaning her any harm, are you?”

Shocked by the accusation, Carver blinked. “Maker, no.”

“Good,” the man said gruffly. “I remember a time when the templars would come through, looking for the Witches of the Wild. You have that look about you.”

“I’m no templar,” Carver avowed, but felt a twinge of guilt. _I’m not lying. Not really._ “I just want to talk to her. How can I find her?”

“Finish up your stew, and I might be able to find someone to take you out there, although he might need some convincing.” Versed enough in the world, Carver stifled a sigh to fish a silver out of a second pocket, sliding it across the table to the tapster. It was palmed with expert alacrity, while he added, “I think I can persuade him.”

#####

The shadows were lengthening when Carver’s guide, the groomsman from the inn’s stable, gestured towards what looked like little more than a crude lean-to of unfinished wood nearly invisible amidst the trees. Either the Blight had spared this stretch of the Kocari Wilds or, as Carver, suspected, magical influence had hastened the cleansing.

“This is it, ser,” the groomsman said obsequiously, hands clutched together in a hunched half-groveling posture. “I should be getting back now, don’t want to be caught out here at night. Are you sure you want to stay?”

“I’ll be fine.” Carver touched the hilt of his sword as both a tacit reminder and as assurance for himself. He didn’t feel nearly as sure as he sounded, now that he was here. When the groomsman didn’t move, Carver rolled his eyes and dug out a second silver and gave it to the man, with a, “Maker watch over you.”

When the groomsman had disappeared down the path, Carver turned to approach the hut. The door opened before he reached it, a familiar, mocking voice coming out of the gloom. “I was wondering if you had come all this way just to turn around and leave again, or if you’d have the stones to knock.”

Recognition sent an electric burst through him that he reined in to be able to answer with a modicum of composure. “It’s good to see you, too, _sister_.”

Her rich chuckle washed over him, reminding him of things, both good and bad, and in no way prepared him for the shock as she stepped out into the dying afternoon light. She looked _old_ , although, rationally, he knew she wasn’t. Her raven black hair had gone salt and pepper, with the salt dominating the seasoning, making her resemble for one, chilling moment, his memories of their father. Her fair skin had weathered to a deep brown, lines creasing its previous smoothness. Her eyes hadn’t changed though, blue, scornful, smoldering as she looked at him and making his mouth go dry even now, all these years later. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you found me,” she said, ignoring his discomfit. Her eyes narrowed as she studied him, cataloging the changes in him, then widening with some realization. “Only that you did. What are you _doing_ here?”

He ached to touch her, but he’d learned restraint in his time with the Order and limited himself to one step towards her. “Looking for you, of course.” The fingers of one of her hands curled into a claw, and the hair on his forearm lifted as he felt her gather magic. With a snarl and some of his old templar authority, he ordered, “Stop that.”

She asked sharply. “Are you here to take us back?”

“I told you, I would neve—wait,” he interrupted himself with surprise. “‘Us’?”

She grimaced, his sister did, realizing her mistake. The defiant lift to her chin along with the blaze in her eyes, and he was thrown back a decade and braced himself for the inevitable explosion. Which didn’t come, as she ignored his question. “Why then?”

Confusion tangled his mind. Easier to answer her. “Because you were right. More Towers have fallen. The templars have broken with the Chantry. The world is in chaos, but I’m not you. I thought I could make a difference, be a voice of reason in all the insanity, but instead it’s only gotten worse. I can’t be a part of them anymore. But if you were alive,” he took another step forward, almost close enough to feel her warmth, “since you _are_ alive, I could try to protect you.”

“The only thing that can protect me is to be invisible,” she said, dropping her gaze.

“Who is ‘us’, Marian?” he asked softly.

For long seconds, she didn’t respond. Then she lifted her face to him and said simply, “Come,” stepping away to beckon him into the hut.

It looked little better on the inside. Blankets covered a thin pallet in one corner, a section of log from some old, massive tree seemed to serve as a table, a stone fireplace—the only thing of true workmanship, and he wondered if she’d used earth magic to construct it—for heat and to cook with. Drying herbs hung from the rafters, so that he had to duck his head, and a plank supported by two more log sections delineated a work area filled with bottles and bowls. But then she said, “Come out, love,” and his surroundings became secondary to the sight of two children crawling from a small door he hadn’t seen in the tree trunk table. _It must be hollow_ came the absurd thought, because it was that or deal with the reality of the children.

The girl was the eldest, and he swallowed hard for her eerie resemblance to his long dead twin. He put her age as around six or seven years old because the templars would sometimes gather mages that age as their talents began manifesting. Her blue eyes betrayed the solemn wisdom of a child who had seen too much for her youth, just as the apprentices had. The boy was much younger and clung to the girl’s waist, face buried in her side.

Seeing his dumbfounded expression, Marian broached the silence with a weary voice. “It’s a complicated story. One best told later,” she said with a hint of warning. “I assume you’ll be staying tonight?”

His answer was a wordless nod.

#####

Night wrapped itself around the hut. Carver had forgotten how deep darkness could be outside of a city—even the few nights he’d slept outdoors during his journey south, there had been starlight or a sliver of the moon. But here, the trees and their leaves blocking much of the sky, he could barely see to cross the short distance to the privy outside the hut without the use of the lantern she’d pressed in his hand.

Supper was mercifully over, a quick, quiet affair when there had been little spoken beyond necessity. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but had been, to discover the girl was Catlin, the daughter Marian had given up so many years ago, _she might be mine_ whispered through his head, a thought he had tried to squash for years until he’d grown too busy to think of her; the boy she called Ian, and he supposed he could imagine some echo of the former Prince of Starkhaven hidden in the toddler’s chubby features, although he, like his sister, like himself, like Marian once had, sported a shock of thick black curls rather than Sebastian’s auburn. Questions crowded his mind like a tangible pressure that wanted release, but he held his tongue, waiting as Marian had requested in not so many words.

When he returned to the hut, the children lay blanketed on the pallet, Ian asleep, Catlin watching Carver with sleepy suspicion curled up around her brother, and Marian turned her head towards him from her seat on the far side of the fireplace, a mug of some warm drink in her hand. Another log chair flanked the hearth, empty, and he joined her, accepting the cup she offered with a small thrill as their fingers brushed together in passing. She seemed content to sit and sip her tea, which would have annoyed Carver to no end when they were younger, but now made a corner of his mouth hook up in a smile as he recognized her ploy. “You owe me a story,” he said, his voice deepening to a barely audible rumble as he tried to speak quietly.

She balanced the mug on her knees, staring into the fire as if she could find the words she needed in the dancing flames. _Maybe she could_ , he thought with a shiver, banished as she spoke. “I should never have been elected Viscount. You know that. I know that.” She looked at him, meeting his gaze, her voice soft but steady. “If Cullen hadn’t been who he was, if Sebastian hadn’t been who he was—“ She broke off, swallowing hard and blinking back what he imagined were tears. “I was pregnant when the mages in Starkhaven killed him. I knew enough that when it was found out, they would have taken Ian from me and gotten rid of me, ‘Champion of Kirkwall’ or not,” she said with a low, bitter laugh. “No one knew yet, just Sebastian and I. So, I fled.”

“And Catlin?” he asked, feeling the aching warmth of memory bubble up at her name.

She looked away from him then, unable to look him in the eye for the same memory. “She was being raised in the Chantry house. You didn’t think I wouldn’t keep track of her, did you? I stole her from their dormitory.” A heart beat’s pause. “She’s a mage, of course.”

 _Of course_ blazed through his mind, yet another shock in a long string of them this day. He glanced over his shoulder to look at the girl—her eyes were closed now, asleep or at least feigning it—searching again for some clue to her paternity, and again coming to no decision. The daughter of a mage, a father whose sister was a mage no matter who it was, it was little wonder the talent had passed on to her. “You’re teaching her,” he said with dawning realization when he turned back to Marian. “Like father did to you and Bethany.”

A nod confirmed his guess, and her fingers tightened around her mug. “As I must. Out here, where we won’t be disturbed, and where no one can be hurt. The people in Lothering don’t know I’m a mage, but I take advantage of the Witches of the Wild legends to shield myself. Few templars come this far south anymore, and when they do, the villagers warn me.”

“It must be lonely,” he blurted out.

Her half-smile was wry. “To someone used to a bustling city, high society and servants? Oh yes.” She sighed. “But it’s worth it. I understand, now, why Mother and Father wound up here, for so many reasons.”

“To protect them,” he said.

“Yes,” she answered simply. “More than myself.”

Sap in the logs snapped and popped in the silence that lengthened between them, Carver floundering in his thoughts. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, journeying halfway across the world to find her, but it hadn’t been this. And now that he had…what? He’d assured himself she was alive, but her situation had knocked him off kilter. For the first time in a long while, and once again in her sphere, he felt rudderless.

“Why are you here?”

Her question interrupted and echoed the circling flow of his musings, bringing his gaze up sharply. “I told you, I had to find you.”

“You left the templars.”

It was more statement than question, oddly edged with accusation that set his hackles up. “The Divine declared the ones that broke away heretics. I may not have been the most faithful of the Maker’s servants, but I’m no heretic. I didn’t want to be associated with those.”

She sniffed, bemused. “So you track me down in the backwater of Thedas and refuse to take me in. Is that how you show your faith?”

“Stop,” he said quietly, suddenly too weary to argue with her. “Aren’t we long past this bickering?”

The darkness seemed suddenly to press against him, the unspoken thing laying heavy between them. Abashed, she stared in the depths of her tea when she asked in a repentant voice, “Now that you’re here, what do you plan to do?”

“I don’t know,” he said carefully. “That depends somewhat on you.”

They stopped speaking then, Marian draining her tea then offering to take the mug from him, rinsing both with water from a bucket. When she turned back to him, her face was unreadable in the dying flames of the fire. “I only have the one pallet, but you’re welcome to share it. The ground grows cold here at night.”

Having had his share of nights out of door on his way down, he accepted with a brief nod. She re-positioned the children, indicating by a gesture that he should take the opposite side with the travel blankets he unfurled, while she lay down between them, sliding under the blankets with Catlin and Ian.

#####

Tired or not, sleep eluded him. He wanted to chalk it up to the chill—she was right, it did grow cold here—or the lumpiness of the straw ticking or the rattle of the tree limbs, but he knew those were just excuses: his mind was too full and his awareness of her proximity too high. He didn’t know how long he tossed and turned restlessly, seeking a more comfortable position and noticing the increasing chill, when she stirred behind him, and he felt a heavy softness as her blankets enfolded him. The shiver he gave then had nothing to do with cold, turning towards her. She was facing him, and put a hand to his cheek, whispering, “You weren’t supposed to find me.”

 _Sorry_ nearly came off his lips; instead, they twisted in a smirk. “Since when have I ever done what you thought I should do?”

Her exhale carried a hint of laughter, her breath warm across his face as she closed in, mouth seeking his until they met with a burst of warmth that turned searing with the vivid memory of being with her on another pallet at Uncle Gamlen’s. They had never kissed, though. The force of his reaction caused him to break away, lips still tingling. “Catlin…Ian…”

“They’ll sleep through anything,” she murmured, loosening the laces of her shirt. “You remember how to be quiet, don’t you?”

He did. Resolve crumbling, they kissed again—she’d probably learned how to from Fenris, or Sebastian, a thought that both excited him and raised a flare of white hot jealousy—and his hand crept down to cup her breast, feeling the warm heaviness against his palm, the plump nipple contract against the sensitive skin. Dipping his head down he took it into his mouth and shuddered to stifle a moan when her milk rolled across his tongue, nearly driving him off. Of course, Ian must be nursing. Her hand tangled in his hair, though, caressing the skull, holding him to her and urging him on, and he sucked again, eyes shutting at the erotic heat of it.

Still, he maintained control of himself, staying as quiet as he could except for the heaviness in his measured breathing, the wetness of his mouth as it laved her skin, cloth shifting and scraping as he moved back up the pallet to reclaim her mouth, taking the time to explore it thoroughly, his first true opportunity to do so. It was she who whimpered before her hand went to the waistband of her pants, at first yanking them down then wriggling to shinny them down her legs to be kicked off somewhere around their feet, and then to his, shoving them down, urging him through touch to lift himself from the pallet to ease the garment to his knees. He started but bit back a grunt with the feel of her soft inner thigh heavy against his hip as she draped her leg over his, imagining he could feel the heat coming from her moist slit opened tantalizingly to him.

Her hand wrapped around his manhood and his focus slipped, riding into the sensation of her stroke with a puffing exhale, a sharp inhale through his nose with teeth clenched when she drew her hand down, towards the root, a motion that became more when she hitched closer to him and he felt his head rubbing against her slick folds as she guided him towards her well. “I’ve missed you,” she breathed, before they thrust, sheathing him effortlessly in her body, followed by a glorious, breathtaking sense of completion crashing into him.

This is where he belonged, here, inside her, two halves of a twisted, broken whole, and for a moment, all he wanted to do was be still and savor the feeling of filling her, being enclosed by her, the scent of skin and sweat and milk filling his nostrils. But then she moved, pulling herself off of him a fraction, and the moment shattered, passed. He was withdrawing himself only to plunge in again, hand falling to clutch at her backside, fingertips digging hard into the flesh as he held her close, tempo quickening as her breathing turned increasingly ragged, until it caught in her throat and she went rigid in his grasp except for the feel of her orgasm rippling up and down his cock. Euphoria swept through him and he felt release come, warmth jetting into her and leaving lassitude in its wake.

Her forehead found his chin, wet and clammy from sweat, and he leaned into it, his nose burying in her coarse hair. There was so much wrong with what they did, but the sense of _right_ rose up within him and smothered it out, leaving peace in its wake.

They didn’t speak. They never did. But after she’d withdrawn to pull her pants back on, to allow him to fix his, she had fit her spine against his chest and allowed it when his arm had moved to encircle her waist.

It was all the words they needed.

#####

“They don’t know what to make of you,” Marian murmured the next morning as they’d returned to the hut from gathering firewood and Catlin ran off to the privy.

Carver felt more relaxed than he had in, well, years, but Marian’s comment caused tension to trickle in. “What do you mean?”

“Catlin otherwise only has memories of being raised by the Chantry. Neither of them understand what it is to have another person around like you are. It’s not as if I have a lot of neighbors as examples.”

Dismay preceded a spike of fear. “Are you…do you want me to leave?”

It was a sign of how far they’d come that she merely smiled. “No. I was just explaining for you.” _Was that relief in her expression?_ But she was going on. “If you _do_ decide to stay, it may take some time for them to get used to you.”

He caught her wrist within the circle of thumb and forefinger, sidetracked, briefly, by the observation of how fine the bones were compared to his sword-callused hand. Pulling his mind back to her gaze on him, he asked, “Do you want me to stay?”

Cautiously, she said, “That’s your decision.”

Folding his fingers down over her arm gently, he said, “I told you last night it depends on you as well.”

She sniffed amusement. “I’ve said it already. You traveled to the ends of the world after me, I think it’s your turn now.”

He blinked at her in confusion, puzzling out her meaning until he remembered. Fire, blood, ash drifting like black snow from the sky their first, mouth searing kiss, and an admission that had probably cost her a little bit of her soul to make. It had been the last time he’d spoken to her before yesterday, and he remembered her hand going to his chestplate, how she had pushed him away through the red sword of the Order. “I love you. I want to stay, if you’ll have me.”

“No.”

The bottom fell out of his heart.

She smirked. “Just kidding. But it was worth it to see your face.”

“I hate you,” he muttered, unable to quell a smile, and because there was no reason anymore why he _couldn’t_ , he hooked his arm around his waist to pull her to him and kissed her, relishing the slip-slide of her tongue caressing his.

“Mama,” Catlin’s voice interrupted them. “What is that?”

Perhaps _one_ reason. Feeling a blush warm his cheeks along with his bemusement, Marian untangled herself from his embrace to turn to her daughter. “It’s a kiss, my little birdling, the kind of kiss two grown-ups might give when they really like one another.”

Turning shy, Catlin’s voice went almost inaudible as she asked, “You really like him?” Her attention turned to Carver, and he was struck by the feeling that he was being appraised and judged.

Taking Carver’s hand in hers, Marian said gently to Catlin, “Yes, love, I do.”

“Oh,” was all Catlin said.

He hoped he’d passed.


End file.
